The Front Row

Dave Biddle it looks like your theory about the Sandusky sudden retirement may hold some water. Here is an article where now Dead Spin is saying they are working on a piece on the Penn State cover up.

With the trial set for June 5th things are starting to heat up.

Here is Dittrich's summary of the backstory via Deadspin:

"According to the grand-jury indictment, the first time Jerry Sandusky was investigated on suspicions of sexual abuse was back in 1998. On May 13 and 19 of that year, detectives from the Penn State and municipal police departments hid in the home of the mother of an alleged victim and listened in on conversations she had with Sandusky, conversations in which Sandusky admitted that his genitals might have touched her son, and that he felt terrible about it, saying "I wish I were dead." Then, on June 1, they interviewed Sandusky in person. Shortly afterward, for unclear reasons, the case was dropped."

Dittrich reportedly did a lot of research at the Paterno Library, located on Penn State's campus, and he soon discovered some trends in Paterno's schedule during that time period.

Paterno was reportedly a very busy man who did something whenever he said he was going to do it -- cancellations were a rarity. Therefore, the absences that Dittrich points out are a bit alarming.

"The first cancellation is on May 15, two days after police listen in on Sandusky's half-confession to the mother of a young boy," Dittrich reports. "That evening, Paterno cuts short a fundraising trip to Valley Forge, then cancels a four-day-long personal vacation he had been planning to take from May 16 to 19, to his summer home in Avalon, New Jersey. He resumes his scheduled fundraising trips in June, about a week after the investigation against Sandusky is dropped. He doesn't miss any more events for the remainder of the year.

"The following season, Sandusky abruptly and unexpectedly announces his retirement."

As Deadspin points out, a March article published in Philadelphia magazine drew similar inferences after speaking with a longtime friend of Tim Curley, the on-leave Penn State athletic director now charged with perjury in connection with the Sandusky case.

According to that article in Philadelphia, "many Paterno watchers" found the plea of ignorance on the head coach's part "laughable." Sandusky retired at the height of his football career, and apparently Paterno had told Sandusky that he would never be his successor.

"But just why Paterno told him that is an open question," the Philadelphia article says. "When Sandusky left, the friend who's been close to Tim Curley for more than 40 years told the A.D. he was surprised the coach was gone.

Curley reportedly told the friend that Sandusky's exit was for a very good reason, although Curley never commented.

See, told you more and more questions are surfacing.

Yeah and right now once the Sandusky trial starts it's going to be the hot ticket so a bunch of new stuff is going to come out.

I would be concerned about that documentary. Now you have national people with funding behind them going after Paterno, Penn State, and the community to find out who knew what and when did you know it.

This is going to get uglier. I actually feel for the average Penn State fan .

Oh, there's no question it holds water. Why else would Sandusky have abruptly resigned in 1999? This will be an easy home run for any national writer that pursues the story.

Totally agree

It's hard to come to grips with a reality so foreign to what you believe someone like Paterno/Tressel stood for so I can understand some initial confusion but the difference is that Tressel wasn't charged with covering up a sexual crime. His violations cost him his job but some young people's lives were not ruined in the process.

This story of this monster just makes me sick.....the people who even had a feeling that something wasn't right are at fault and those who knew and did nothing about it or even covered it up should be put away with Sandusky.

If Paterno and the PSU coaches and Administration were willing to cover up child sex abuse, what kind of NCAA violations did they cover up. I have a feeling that the Sandusky cover up was not Paterno's first.

Curious... How would you have use apply the above declaration to the Penn State case ?

Worst kept secret in the Big 10 was how dirty joepa and psu have always been. Always wanted them to be exposed but never like this. Just imagine how many tatgate like scandals were covered up by joepa and his lackeys, as well as the cops and media in psus pocket

Don't forget, McQueary, as a grad student, brings this to Paterno. Shortly thereafter, he is hired as a paid assistant. Hmmm.

This will no doubt continue to shake Penn State to the their core.

Everything they were taught and believed in was a fraud. The hollier than thou, finger waiving on their soap box was a straight up sham that netted that community and program millions of dollars since they started covering up.

So "The Grand Experiment" went haywire?